Handling Android App Links

Users following links on devices have one goal in mind: to get to the content they want to see.
As a developer, you can set up Android App Links to take users to a link's specific content
directly in your app, bypassing the app-selection dialog, also known as the disambiguation
dialog. Because Android App Links leverage
HTTP URLs and association with a website, users who don't have your app installed go directly
to content on your site.

Deep linking and Android App Links

Before you dive into the implementation, it's important to understand the different types of
links you can create in your Android app: deep links and Android App Links.

Deep links are URLs that take users directly to specific content in your app.
In Android, you can set up deep links by adding
intent filters
and extracting data from incoming intents to drive users to the right activity.

However, if other apps installed on a user's device can handle the same intent, users might not
go directly to your app. For example, clicking a URL in an email from a bank might lead to a
dialog asking the user whether to use the browser or the bank's own app to open the link.

Android App Links on Android 6.0 (API level 23) and higher allow an app to
designate itself as the default handler of a given type of link. If the user doesn't want the
app to be the default handler, they can override this behavior from their device's system
settings.

Android App Links offer the following benefits:

Secure and specific: Android App Links use HTTP URLs that link to a website
domain you own, so no other app can use your links. One of the requirements for Android App
Links is that you verify ownership of your domain through one of our website association methods.

Seamless user experience: Since Android App Links use a single HTTP URL for
the same content on your website and in your app, users who don’t have the app installed
simply go to your website instead of the app — no 404s, no errors.

Engage users from Google Search: Users directly open specific content in
your app by clicking a URL from Google in a mobile browser, in the Google Search app, in
screen search on Android, or through Google Assistant.

Add Android App Links

The general steps for creating Android App Links are as
follows:

Create deep links to specific content in your app: In your app manifest,
create intent filters for your website URIs and configure your app to use data from the intents
to send users to the right content in your app. Learn more in
Create Deep Links to App Content.